Personal Moral Code Research Articles

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FAMILY RELIGIOSITY AND DRUG USE BEHAVIOR AMONG YOUTH

This study evaluated the relationship between several dimensions of parental and family religiosity with adolescent drug use behavior. Analysis was based on self-reported responses to a questionnaire administered to 1,036 undergraduate college students at Brigham Young University, of which 99.1% are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). About 86% reported having never used drugs. The most commonly reported reasons for abstention from drugs were that drug use violates the participants' religious beliefs and their personal moral code. In contrast, concern about legal consequences, harming family reputation, and avoiding dishonest behavior were among the least common reasons for abstaining from drugs. Children of parents who were neutral, versus critical, about religion — or who considered religion of minor importance — were more likely to have a history of drug use. Protective factors against drug behavior included also parental positions of responsibility in the church and frequent family discussions involving religion and Christian conduct. The mother's view of religion was a stronger indicator of previous drug use behavior than either the father's view of religion, positions of church responsibility held by the parents, or arguments about religious teachings with parents. Discussion on topics of Christian conduct was a stronger indicator of previous drug use behavior than were either church attendance or discussions on topics of religious doctrine.

Basic Ethical and Legal Foundations of Nursing Practice: Correlations and Conflicts

Nurses are having more and more difficulty distinguishing between ethical and legal aspects of nursing practice as health care becomes more and more complex. Conflicts between personal moral beliefs and codes of professional ethics may pose dilemmas for nurses, as may conflicts with other health care disciplines. To clarify those differences, this article will provide a brief introduction to basic ethical and legal principles that affect nursing practice in the United States.

Beyond the Ethics Committee: Representing Others in Qualitative Research

While university ethics committees codify ethical standards for 'research with human subjects', qualitative researchers grapple with shifting and elusive problems which remain beyond the ambit of effective legislation. In this article I examine some of these problems in the light of my own experience in conducting a participant observation study of soldier-musicians in an Australian army band. While there is a considerable literature on the ethical conundrums met in fieldwork, there is less about the problems of writing about other people. Yet, in their writing, qualitative researchers have a considerable responsibility for what they say about their subjects. Hence, representing others in qualitative research is my focus. I conclude that just as in human social life, where rules for ethical behaviour reside in the conscience of individuals, so too ethical problems in qualitative research can be addressed only in the context of our personal moral codes.

Sanction Threats and Appeals to Morality: Testing a Rational Choice Model of Corporate Crime

We specify and test a rational choice model of corporate crime. This model includes measures of the perceived costs and benefits of corporate crime (for both the firm and the individual), perceptions of shame, persons' assessment of the opprobrium of the act, and contextual characteristics of the organization. Consistent with this model, we find that intentions to commit four types of corporate crime are affected by sanction threats (formal and informal), moral evaluations, and organizational factors. Net of the various incentives and disincentives for corporate crime, persons' personal moral code was found to be a very important source of inhibition. In fact, when moral inhibitions were high, considerations of the cost and benefit of corporate crime were virtually superfluous. When moral inhibitions were weak, however, persons were deterred by threats of formal and informal sanctions and by organizational context. We contend that theoretical models of corporate crime and public policy efforts must contain both instrumental (threats of punishment) and deontological (appeals to morality) factors.

Dimensions of personality organization as predictors of teenage pregnancy risk.

Personality development as measured by Loevinger's Washington University Sentence Completion Test, The Friedman Developmental Level Scoring System for the Rorschach, The Urist Mutuality of Autonomy Scale, The Thematic Apperception Test, and indexes from a structured interview were able to discriminate between teenagers at high- and low-risk for pregnancy. In addition, these measures correlated significantly with each other and enabled a description and comparison of the personality characteristics of adolescents who are at risk for pregnancy and those who are not.

Moral Rules as Expressive Symbols

There are different sorts of justification that a moral rule can have -different reasons we can give for having a certain rule as part of our social morality, or our personal moral code. I want to identify and consider one sort of justification or rationale for a moral rule that seems to have gone unrecognized, namely the case where a rule is seen as a symbol, which people choose and maintain as a vehicle to express some basic moral conviction.